Wednesday, March 24, 2010

When babies become teenagers, they are suddenly embarrassed by their parents. I don't remember being embarrassed by my dad, but my mom was never one to hide in a crowd. Anyway, I know one day Makenzie will be embarrassed by me and I feel the need to counter her future claims by documenting the things that she does that are embarrassing...

First of all, she is a growler. She growls at people. She will be sitting there in a cute little dress with a cute little bow looking all sweet and innocent and then suddenly a horrible demon noise comes out of her. She chooses mostly to do this during church, for all to hear...most people tell me they find it funny, but I find it pretty embarrassing.

The next embarrassing thing also started at church. Lately Makenzie has been obsessed with "no no" (while shaking her finger). She paces around all the things in the house she knows is a "no no" and says it over and over. Well, she discovered a new "no no". Hitting mommy and daddy in the face is a big no no. So now she thinks it is a game to whack us in the face and then shake her finger at us while saying "no no." I can't tell you how bad this looks in public....it looks like she has learned that when you do a "no no" you get hit. I think everyone thinks we abuse her now and hit her whenever she does something wrong. I promise we don't...we have never hit her...I only scratched her once and that was an accident.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

This story is for my own records. You don't have to read it...you can just scroll down to see where we are headed.

Pretty much all within a day, we received an offer in Maryland, an offer in Arizona, and a raise at Nick's current job in Salt Lake. That left our options pretty open.

For a long time we thought we would move to Salt Lake for a couple of years. Nick has a job there ( L-3 Communications) that paid for his Master's degree. He was supposed to owe them two years after graduation or pay tuition back. We always assumed we would work there for two years and consider his degree free... But, we learned he could pay back those two years at any of L-3's locations. There was no official transfer policy, but he was allowed to interview with another branch and get a job that way.

The job in Maryland was an L-3. At first I really wanted to move to Maryland. I love the East Coast, and it was so close to so many fun cities (DC, New York City, Boston, etc..) Nick and I also wanted to be within a driving distance of one of our families. Maryland met that criteria. We also wouldn't have to pay Nick's tuition back. The job there also sounded really cool. He would need a government clearance and he would be doing some travel to war ships out in the middle of the ocean.

Somewhere along the way we decided not to limit ourselves to just applying for L-3 jobs. We decided paying back tuition was not that big of a deal and this might be a great time to get started doing something he wanted to do long term (remember this is BYU tuition prices, pretty reasonable...). So, Nick discovered a job at a small company in Mesa, Arizona. This job seemed to be a job that would best utilize Nick's skills and he would be doing exactly what he wanted to do long term. But Arizona didn't seem to meet any of the other criteria. Not even close to either of our families. We would have to pay tuition back. Small companies can be risky. The job also involved international travel. Nick has never been thrilled about the idea of international travel.

When Nick interviewed in Maryland, he had a grave realization: although the job offered work on some pretty exciting things, and he thought he would probably be fine working there, it did not seem like work that he really wanted to do.

When Nick interviewed in Arizona, it seemed like exactly what he wanted to do.

After receiving offers from both companies, taking all information into consideration, and lots of prayer, we came to our conclusion. There was only one job that we both felt good about. And that was the job in Arizona.

It seems so ironic to me. In the beginning, Maryland was the clear choice. Arizona did not really play a part in my mind unless Nick happened to not get offered a job in Maryland. I am so grateful for prayer. I don't know how people live without it. Because of prayer, we were able to come to a decision we both felt really good about even though most practical signs pointed to Maryland being the best choice.

So the point of all this: we are headed to Mesa, Arizona on April 26th!

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Nick cracks me up. He had a job interview in Maryland last weekend. He decided he couldn't pass us a chance to visit DC even though he didn't really have time. So, he did what he called a "sprinting tour of DC." He called to let me know that he had one hour to tour all of DC. So, he took off running from monument to monument taking pictures as he ran by:

In case you were wondering, the job interview did go well. We received a call from the company letting us know that they are working on an offer. But, we don't know if we are going to take it. Everything just depends....

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Random Makenzie facts:-She is scared of two things: the vacuum and the sound of tape being pulled off the roll (she cries every time....)- She has 15-20 words- She knows 6 animal sounds- She growls at people- She still only has two teeth and about 1/4 in of hair- Still in size two diapers- Any time I fold my arms she thinks it's time to pray and she will fold her arms and start saying a prayer- Only eats consistently: waffles, yogurt, and oatmeal or any type of treat- Paces in front of the the DVD's and in front of electrical outlets and shakes her finger at them while saying "no no no no no no no"- She says 'yes' backwards (ssssssssssssyeah)- Always looks for Nick throughout the day. She goes back and knocks on all of the bedroom/bathroom doors and yells "dada!!!"-She is always on the go and has some major project going on. I seriously almost never see her sit down or take a break.-Will kiss anything in the house except mama!

Of course there are about a thousand other funny things she does but this is all I will list for now. I just love that little girl so much! She makes me laugh all day long. I think I have the best job in the world!